Was 'Arbour' a harbour?

Apart from finding their way, the principal difficulty for long-distance travellers in the past was finding a safe place to spend the night - before the advent of inns. It seems likely that they used a series of fortified, hilltop enclosures, similar to the caravanserai found in the Middle East up to the nineteenth century.

Along the route of the Derbyshire Portway there is a chain of likely sites for such enclosures, such as Harborough Rocks west of Wirksworth and Arbour Hill west of Dale. (The well-known prehistoric complex at Arbor Low may be another example on the old road from Wirksworth to Buxton).

After publishing The Derbyshire Portway in 2008 I discovered another Arbour Hill, this one in the grounds of Wollaton Hall, shown above. Only a couple of miles from the Hemlock Stone in Bramcote (where I had finished my earlier research) this suggests an eastward route along the Bramcote Hills and then along the line of the present Derby Road towards a crossing of the River Leen at Lenton, probably close to the site of Lenton Priory.

Although close to the private golf course, this Arbour Hill is easily accessible. If you enter Wollaton park by the lodge gate opposite Nottingham University's northern flank, turn right and walk uphill you soon come to a magnificent ancient oak tree, and just beyond this is the hilltop, covered now in rhododendron and Scots pine.

Marking the way

How did  travellers find their way across unfamiliar country before maps and modern road signs? There are only two possibilities, both of which can still be found in remote parts of the world. Either a guide with local knowledge can be hired, or travellers can memorise a series of natural landmarks and man-made way marks, such as the cairns of stones still found in upland Britain.

On the route of the Derbyshire Portway many of the ancient way marks have clearly been lost, but enough survive to suggest that the whole route could have been navigated with their aid. The lower photo shows the Stapleford Cross, now in the churchyard at Stapleford, but which was earlier located elsewhere, possibly by the nearby ford over the Erewash, where the Portway crossed from Derbyshire into Nottinghamshire. Believed to date from c. 800 BCE, it is much older than the church and the oldest religious monument in the county. It may possibly be the origin of the town's name (the steeple - or post - at the ford).

The upper picture shows the standing stone in a field near the Malt Shovel pub above Wirksworth, on the Whatstandwell road. It is thought that the Portway came this way from Alport Height, looping round Wirksworth to avoid the steep descent into the town, heading for Steeple Grange. Without any carving, it is impossible to date this enigmatic stone, yet it is clearly not a gatepost or stile, and it is difficult to imagine any other function than a marker.